Meena Kandasamy has a way of adapting Indian myths to communicate what she has gotten to say. Princess in Exile is one such poems. Here she uses the story of Sita and Rama from The Ramayana, an Indian legend. The Sita in The Ramayana is a woman who was abducted by Ravana, a king from the south and Rama is the king with great morals who goes to rescue his wife from Ravana's captivity. However Ravana though abducted Sita from Rama, respected her purity, probably because the male society of the time wanted to see her only so.
In Meena's poem she tells us that the Sita who is revered and praised in the spiritual world is different from the 'modern day Sita' who is reluctant to give in to the oppressive demands of a patriarchal society. She also says that the spiritual or religious realm which included her was carried away by the 'new age guru', referring to Science or Reason. In simple words she is of the opinion that the spiritual circle was overrun by Science and Technology/Reason/Logic. (However Meena's understanding of spirituality is from a limited viewpoint of university education and reasoning which might be insufficient to understand religion and spirituality in its full sense, where Spirituality is often experienced in a different realm, a realm completely out of logic and Science. Modern day-woman can both be spiritual at the same time logical. However Meena takes the issue of a woman who solely belongs to the latter category)... The modern day Sita is simply the modern woman with sound education and a good sense of reasoning who is in revolt with the male society. Even though men of today's world are different in many respects compared to the men of the time of the legend (The Ramayana), they still chase woman to subdue her and make her come under their authoritative rule (Years later her husband won her back).
Here, the modern woman is described as 'adept at walkouts', means she is not willing to remain in the oppressive clutches of patriarchy anymore. She has perfected the art of vanishing from men who want to subjugate her alluding to what Sita did in Ramayana while her question of loyalty was raised. The Sita in Ramayana went to earth but the modern woman stays on earth to fight oppression.... A problem we can easily find in her (Meena's) poems is that, knowingly or unknowingly she promotes hatred through her poems. She must work hard to bring the solution of love to the question of racial discrimination by dropping the aggressive tones in her poems.
In Meena's poem she tells us that the Sita who is revered and praised in the spiritual world is different from the 'modern day Sita' who is reluctant to give in to the oppressive demands of a patriarchal society. She also says that the spiritual or religious realm which included her was carried away by the 'new age guru', referring to Science or Reason. In simple words she is of the opinion that the spiritual circle was overrun by Science and Technology/Reason/Logic. (However Meena's understanding of spirituality is from a limited viewpoint of university education and reasoning which might be insufficient to understand religion and spirituality in its full sense, where Spirituality is often experienced in a different realm, a realm completely out of logic and Science. Modern day-woman can both be spiritual at the same time logical. However Meena takes the issue of a woman who solely belongs to the latter category)... The modern day Sita is simply the modern woman with sound education and a good sense of reasoning who is in revolt with the male society. Even though men of today's world are different in many respects compared to the men of the time of the legend (The Ramayana), they still chase woman to subdue her and make her come under their authoritative rule (Years later her husband won her back).
Here, the modern woman is described as 'adept at walkouts', means she is not willing to remain in the oppressive clutches of patriarchy anymore. She has perfected the art of vanishing from men who want to subjugate her alluding to what Sita did in Ramayana while her question of loyalty was raised. The Sita in Ramayana went to earth but the modern woman stays on earth to fight oppression.... A problem we can easily find in her (Meena's) poems is that, knowingly or unknowingly she promotes hatred through her poems. She must work hard to bring the solution of love to the question of racial discrimination by dropping the aggressive tones in her poems.
I must say this is a well-written article.
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